


Not Yours, Not Mine, But Ours All the Same

by collarsandplaid



Category: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Genre: Bonding, But they both love their hobo spider, Canonical Character Death, Compare and Contrast, Developing Friendships, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Found Family, Gen, Gwen misses hers, Light Angst, Miles wishes he knew his, Spideyfam - Freeform, both dead Peters mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-02 00:14:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17254013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/collarsandplaid/pseuds/collarsandplaid
Summary: Turns out, they had something else in common. They had both lost their Peter Parker.(Missing scene on the bus after the Alchemax escape.)





	Not Yours, Not Mine, But Ours All the Same

**Author's Note:**

> I apologize in advance: this was written spur of the moment to quell the plot-bunny in my head.
> 
> Update: made some edits to correctly correlate with the film's timeline, and because I thought of a few more details I felt needed to be added.

“So your dimension had a Peter Parker too?”

And here she had thought the conversation was over.

Gwen glanced up from her phone to meet the brown eyes of one of her two travelling companions.

Miles Morales was sitting parallel to her, across the aisle of the small Hudson Valley Explorer bus, looking rather tense in the blue seat despite their recent successful mission of acquiring Doc Ock’s hardrive from Alchemax. Completely foil to Miles’ stiff position, Peter B. Parker (not hers, not Miles’, but another dimension’s) was lying down fully extended across one row of seats. Shins poking out from too-short sweatpants and a pair of knees were the only things she could see of the assumingly asleep older spider.

“Yeah,” she answered at last, looking away again. “It did.”

The terse finality of the statement made Miles flinch but Gwen had already hardened herself against the fact. She had lost her best friend. She had grieved. She would never forget but she liked to think she had recovered enough to focus on getting the job done.

“What was he like?” Miles asked, voice small: not quite scared of her reaction, but at least respectful towards her loss.

Gwen took a sharp inhale, blinked rapidly for only a second and then turned fully away to stare out the window. She had to force herself not to meet the gaze of her own reflection.

“I’d rather not talk about it.”

Miles nodded to himself. Okay, he could understand that. After all, they were mostly, by all accounts, strangers. Sure she had laughed at one of his dumb jokes, and he had taken a good chunk of her hair, but it wasn’t like they were on a level of friendship to start swapping emotional stories of the past.

And yet, he felt like they were on some deeper plane of existence; some higher level of familiarity that was stronger than a simple friendship. They were both spiders and he felt more connected to her and the janky, old, hobo Spiderman than he ever felt with any friend he’d ever made.

It felt like being with his parents: his father’s hand on his shoulder or encircled in his mother’s embrace; the smell of a home-cooked meal simmering in the kitchen.

It felt like being with his uncle, like he could just say anything and he’d be completely understood and accepted as he was.

It felt like being at home, in his room, with a pen in his hand and music flooding his ears. Or even like standing in front of a bit of wall, an empty canvas, spray cans at the ready at his feet.

It was familiar and comfortable and it made his head buzz and his belly swirl with warmth. So he didn’t feel completely out of bounds when he opened his mouth to say the next words:

“Can I talk about mine?”

That got her full attention. Gwen swung around to face him, blue eyes searching, trying to find his, except he had already dropped his gaze to his untied sneakers.

“It’s just that, I didn’t know him all that long and all of a sudden he’s gone, and now I’m Spiderman, but there’s suddenly two more Spider-people and, I don’t know, I guess I never really got the time to wrap my head around it all.”

He didn’t mean to ramble, or stumble through his feelings but he didn’t know how else to say it. He had watched his Spiderman die and then, the very next night, had found himself looking into the face (albeit an older, more tired face) of the same Spiderman - minus the blond hair. Next thing he knew, he was breaking into a highly secured Alchemax research lab alongside this new – not his – Spiderman, finding out a black hole was due under Brooklyn any moment, and then running for his life from a freaky, science lady with tubey, claw-hand things.

It was a lot to take in.

Too much to take in maybe.

And talking about it, well, talking about it with someone who likely understood it more than anybody else, maybe even more than himself, might help.

Gwen watched the apprehension and uncertainty flicker over Miles’ face, noting perhaps for the first time traces of grief still etched in the lines around the boy’s eyes.

“Don't you want to have this conversation with Peter?” she asked carefully, quietly, so as to not disturb the sleeping spider behind them in case Miles didn’t.

Miles let out a breathy laugh and Gwen’s brows furrowed at how broken it sounded. “Nah, my Peter and… that Peter-” he jerked a thumbed back at the exposed shins behind him, “look too much alike that talking to him about his other self would feel… weird.”

Gwen nodded her agreement. She even struggled to look this other Peter fully in the face because of the memories it stirred up in her heart. She could see her best friend there: in the jawline, the disheveled hair, and especially the eyes.

“So, what was your Peter like?”

She had seen him of course, on the many television screens of New York: young, blond, and beautiful. But she had also seen his memorial, his grieving wife, and his gravestone.

Despite the somberness of her own thoughts, Miles smiled, lifting his gaze to hers at last. “He was amazing. I saw him all the time on the news and on youtube. Plus my dad complained about him constantly. He said that Spiderman purposefully went looking for trouble. Like he didn't know how to stay still or take a break. He always had to be helping someone.

“He always put the city’s welfare above his own. He did everything for New York. I always wondered how he did it. How he could have some secret life, a family, and still be Spiderman.”

Miles’ smile faded and something dark and haunted flitted over his face. Gwen held her breath, anticipating what was going to come next, but not entirely ready for it.

“I was there, Gwen. I watched him die.” He swallowed heavily, voice impossibly small and far too vulnerable to be the same kid who had disastrously flirted with her at school.

Her hand twitched and she squeezed her palms together to fight the sudden urge to reach out.

“I couldn’t – I didn’t do anything. I just hid and watched Kingpin kill him." Miles was looking at his own hands now, contemplating his own strength, or his lack thereof. "He saved my life and I couldn't - didn’t do a damn thing to save his. And to the very end, he was telling me everything was going to be okay.”

Gwen gave up. She lifted her arm and reached out across the gap between them, hand clamping down on Miles’ wrist with a comforting weight. He paused, then lightly ghosted his fingers over hers.

“I didn’t know him for long but what I saw in the few minutes I had with him, everything the city, my dad, and I had heard was true. He was a hero right up to the very end.”

There was a sharp intake of breath behind them, like someone startling awake after a bad dream, and the legs shifted. Miles and Gwen jerked away from each other and froze; waited for any signs of alertness in the older Peter. But then the legs settled and a soft snoring ensued. 

“Guess that’s not necessarily true for every dimension, though,” Miles joked with a half-shrug, his expression fond despite the jab.

“You don’t mean that,” Gwen chuckled lightly, lips curved up in a half-smile.

“Maybe at first, but less now.”

“What changed?”

“Probably nothing. This Peter just took a little longer than mine to prove it.”

Gwen tilted her head and Miles caught the question in her eyes before she could ask it.

“Oh, this guy’s a mess, don’t get me wrong, but the core ideas of Spiderman? – or whatever you want to call it – are still there.”

Gwen glanced back at the sweatpants, catching just a small glimpse of a stomach extended by years of self-deprecation and pizza, and looked back at Miles, one brow arched with disbelief. Miles laughed and quickly covered his mouth.

“I mean it,” he argued, voice back to normal, laughter bubbling just below the words and some of the light back in his eyes. Gwen’s own expression softened at the sight.

“Back at that lab with Doc Ock coming after us, all he did was keep telling me everything was going to be okay. And he was right. I was freaking out a bit, but I wasn’t worried. Because he was right.”

Miles met Gwen’s gaze and held it, the absolution firm in his stare. “He made sure no one so much as brushed up against me. Despite all his complaining, he saved my life, just like this dimension’s Peter.”

And to be perfectly honest, Miles felt like this older, depressed, thicker Peter Parker from another dimension was becoming more _his_ Peter than his actual Peter was. Sure the blond Peter was from his dimension, had saved his life, and had promised to show Miles the ropes, but it was this other spider that fought alongside him, protected him, and taught him to swing. Miles knew without a doubt that he would undeniably start referring to this other Peter as _his_ Peter soon enough.

Gwen glanced once more at their third companion, a new appreciation making the stare less disbelieving and adding something akin to the same fondness Miles was looking at him with now.

“My Peter was the same.”

Miles snapped his attention to Gwen, eyes wide and mouth open in a little “o”. Gwen didn’t bother meeting his incredulous stare. Her eyes had fallen back to her entwined hands. Hands that had touched the face of her best friend as he lay dead in her arms. Because she hadn’t been able to save him. Because she had killed him.

“He was smart, and sweet, a loyal friend. He would have followed me to the ends of the earth, cheering me on.” She blinked against the heat rising behind her eyes, idly wondering how it could all feel so fresh when it had happened two years ago. "Even when times were hard... and people were at their worst, he tried his best."

 _I loved him._ “I miss him.”

This time it was Miles’ hand to find hers and give it a squeeze. She met the empathy in his eyes, void of pity, and offered a wavering smile in gratitude.

He didn’t push for more details, didn’t ask about how her Peter had died. He just held her hand until she composed herself enough to once again sit proudly in her chair. Then he took his hand away.

“It’s hard,” Gwen continued after a minute, thoughtfully, as if she was carefully constructing the words to best convey her thoughts, “and sometimes I have to really squint to see it, but sometimes, I can see my Peter in this one.” She jabbed a thumb back at the shins.

Just then a crackling snore echoed around them loud enough to make them both jump.

Gwen and Miles both laughed at that, politely covering their mouths so as to not disturb their new Peter Parker.

The silence that settled once more over the bus was a comfortable one. Miles’ chest felt a bit lighter, and Gwen could see her smile reflected in the frosty glass.

Peter Parker just smiled up at the ceiling.

When the bus finally slowed to a stop back in the city, Peter was the first to stand, groaning and stretching stiff joints with worrisome pops and cracks. As Miles and Gwen started to rise, Peter placed himself between them and plopped a hand down on each of their heads.

“All right, team, let’s move out,” he enthused, giving the blonde waves and the dark curls an affectionate ruffle.

Gwen groaned and tried to duck away from the hand. Miles huffed out a laugh as he tried to swipe at the hand. But neither said anything when Peter’s fingers lingered just a little longer.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I needed more fanfics. So I wrote my own.  
> This movie haunts me, I love it so much.
> 
> (PS: if you see any discrepancies or my arch nemesis: the Typo, please let me know)


End file.
